Media coverage and interviews on »Fire Trucks for Kharkiv«
3Sat, documentary film »Creatives at War – The Defense of Ukrainian Identity« by Viola Löffler and David Assmann, February 11, 2023: »[Deniz Yücel:] I am here on behalf of the authors’ association PEN Berlin. We are writers, we are journalists, we have nothing to do with the fire service. (…) But just as Serhij here in Kharkiv has, since the beginning of the Russian attack, not only been writing and making music but also helping and organizing – because sometimes it is no longer enough to write and talk –, we said: Then we will try, as far as we can, to help Serhij. With fire trucks, with generators, with water tanks.« VIDEO [EXCERPT]
Welt, piece by Deniz Yücel, 25 January 2023: »On a bitterly cold Wednesday morning, we deliver the first fire truck to the village of Kozacha Lopan, 45 kilometres north of Kharkiv, right on the Russian border. A dozen firefighters are waiting for us. ›You are our heroes, and we help wherever we can,‹ says Zhadan, down with a heavy cold, at the improvised handover ceremony.« LINK [€] and PDF
RBB Inforadio, Starke Sätze, conversation by Stephan Ozsváth with Ralf Bönt, 22 January 2023: »I didn’t want to end up having sat here and done nothing. And I have a great fear: This is the first authentic report from Mariupol. And I can’t live with it, I won’t be able to live well with it now either, that this is happening while we sit here and can’t do anything. And this powerlessness really gets to me. If you like, it was a calming drop for myself, simply to do something. But I am glad that it has grown, that it also makes a difference. We will really have brought – indeed also technically – a light to many people. But we have also sent a signal: You are not alone in this.« AUDIO
SauerlandKurier, report by Inge Schleining, 18 January 2023: »The authors’ association PEN Berlin has launched a relief campaign for Ukraine. Through donations, those responsible obtained, among other things, two fire trucks that had to be taken to Kharkiv to support the Ukrainian firefighters. Also on board: Michael Bockelkamp, a haulage contractor from Hülschotten. (…) Bockelkamp didn’t shy away ›in principle at all‹; on the contrary. ›Actually, since last year I’ve just been waiting for such an opportunity.‹« LINK
Welt [TV], conversation by Carsten Hädler and Franca Lehfeldt with Deniz Yücel, 11 January 2023: »Of course, military aid is a big issue; humanitarian aid is a big issue. But the guys I’m here with, in whose rehearsal room I am, are musicians who have been playing for soldiers at the front for eight years, because the war in eastern Ukraine didn’t start only in February of last year. I’ve just spoken with Oleksandr, the band’s singer. (…) They have found that soldiers also need encouragement. That’s why these guys, and also Serhij Zhadan with his band, keep playing for soldiers. So: the military is important, humanitarian aid is important. But culture is important, too.« VIDEO
Tagesspiegel, commentary by Gerrit Bartels, 11 January 2023: »If you then also consider that (…) weapons expertise is now the order of the day, that society as a whole is preoccupied with the differences between infantry fighting vehicles and main battle tanks (and how much more appealing one finds the delivery of two fire engines by PEN Berlin this weekend to Kharkiv), then the start to the new year was brutal; there was hardly any opportunity to settle in, to take it easy, and to steal a little more time.« LINK
Süddeutsche Zeitung, piece by Ralf Bönt, 10 January 2023: »It had begun only eight weeks earlier when Serhij Zhadan answered a question of mine. I had wanted to know whether fire trucks with generators and water tanks could be helpful. In that case, I had offered to try to raise donations. ›Many, many thanks‹, he wrote, ›that would be great.‹ That in Germany you can indeed find donors but no truck drivers was not even on the horizon then. Nor was the difficulty of spending a good €150,000 sensibly and cost-consciously within a very short time.« LINK
Berliner Kurier, 8 January 2023: »The debate over German ›Marder‹ infantry fighting vehicles for Ukraine seems to overshadow everything. Yet an initiative by writers and journalists makes one thing clear: Ukraine also needs help to cope with the consequences of Russian attacks on the civilian population.« LINK
taz, 8 January 2023: »According to writer Ralf Bönt, who initiated the aid campaign with Bednarz and in cooperation with PEN Berlin, it was important for the campaign to make a difference beyond morality and a gesture of solidarity. ›Because the Russian aggressors are attacking infrastructure, we are trying to deliver mobile infrastructure as far as we can‹, added Deniz Yücel. Liane Bednarz called for support for the Ukrainians’ ›impressive fight for freedom‹.« LINK
epd report, carried by, among others, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, 8 January 2023: »According to PEN Berlin, its spokesperson Deniz Yücel and co-initiator Liane Bednarz handed over urgently needed relief supplies to the Ukrainian colleague, writer, musician and Peace Prize laureate Serhij Zhadan: two Iveco fire rescue vehicles each with a 20kVA emergency generator, a trailer, 28 diesel generators with 8 kVA output, one diesel generator with 50 kVA output, two petrol generators with 6.6 kVA output, 6x6kW construction heaters, as well as seven frost-proof drinking water tanks of 1,000 litres each. In addition, spare tyres, packing materials and tools were delivered.« LINK
MDR Kultur, Unter Büchern, conversation by Katrin Schumacher with Ralf Bönt, 14 December 2022: »… then I asked Zhadan whether he could make use of fire service rescue vehicles – they have generators in them, there is room for water tanks. Then he wrote back: ›Great, do it!‹ When we were ready to start shopping, he told me where the first ones should go: namely to Kosatscha Lopan. That’s an hour north of Kharkiv, three kilometres from the border, occupied on 24.2 and liberated on 11.9. You can find all the gruesome reports about it on the web.« AUDIO
Deutschlandfunk Kultur, conversation by Jana Münkel with Liane Bednarz, 7 December 2022: »We are now delivering at least two fire trucks. Why fire trucks? Because fire trucks can deliver what is most needed at the moment, namely drinking water tanks and generators. In the respective village where these vehicles then arrive, there is a reliable place for the local population to obtain electricity and drinking water.« AUDIO
Perlentaucher, piece by Ralf Bönt, 6 December 2022: »Like Serhij Zhadan, I do not believe that words and demands suffice now. Rather, the act of transference that writers in particular ought to be capable of lies in imagining what it is like when the only messages one still receives in the cold, dark house in the cold, dark village are to be found in the sky, and these are not, as in the past, the stars that foretold fate, but rockets that want to kill you. I fear the first novel from Mariupol in which I read, detail by detail, that what was never supposed to happen again has happened again, this time while I already knew it.« LINK